Lesson

People are strange animals. While we do possess intelligence, our minds still don’t work like other animals. A fetish is something that arouses you sexually. Some men have a breast fetish, some a butt fetish, while others may have a high-heel-shoe fetish or a polished-fingernail fetish. Do you have any fetishes that you will admit to?

Some people love to be sick. When you are sick, people are more caring and sympathetic to you. They will do things to make you more comfortable. They will not ask you to do any work. Some people take advantage of this situation subconsciously. Their minds tell them that they are always sick or suffering from some disease or other malady. We call this mental condition hypochondria, and the sufferers hypochondriacs. On most days, you can find these people in their doctor’s offices.

Sometimes a large number of people obsess over something and act irrationally crazy about it. We call this phenomenon a mania, and the sufferers maniacs. When the Beatles (singing group) were very popular in their heyday, their fans were fanatically loyal and enthusiastic about them. We called these fans “Beatlemaniacs” and the phenomenon “Beatlemania”. Some manias are real psychological problems. Some celebrities have a compulsion to steal things, even though they are rich and could easily buy these things. This condition is called kleptomania and the sufferers kleptomaniacs. This means they are “crazy” about stealing things.

Narcissism is excessive love of oneself. Some people believe that President Donald Trump is narcissistic; that is, he is a narcissist. What do you think?

A neurosis is a mental and emotional disorder that affects only part of the personality, is accompanied by a less distorted perception of reality than in a psychosis, does not result in disturbance of the use of language, and is accompanied by various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances (such as visceral symptoms, anxieties, or phobias). A sufferer is a neurotic. A bunch of screaming kids in your home may cause you to become neurotic (anxious, stressed out).

“Pathological” means caused by a disease or mental disorder. I personally believe that Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar. I do not believe she is capable of telling the truth. Some disease or mental disorder causes her to always lie to people.

Stronger than a neurosis, a psychosis is a serious mental illness (such as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality, often with hallucinations or delusions. Psychotic killers may be extremely paranoid and may believe that everyone wants to kill them, so they feel they must take action to kill those people first.

Schadenfreude is a feeling of pleasure when you see others suffering and being miserable. Does this sound like something you’ve ever done before? We have a saying: “Misery loves company.” We feel better, or perhaps superior, when we see others struggling with problems. When the Volkswagen scandal broke (was revealed), you can be sure that many American car companies were probably pleased to see the mighty pillar of automotive integrity and excellence fall down out of its high tower in the sky. They felt schadenfreude over Volkswagen’s embarrassing predicament.

“Subliminal” means happening or perceived below your level of awakened consciousness. Your mind sees it or hears it but your fully-awake senses do not detect this sight or sound. Some unscrupulous advertisers will insert very brief picture frames into a movie or advertisement video that your wakened mind and eyes cannot see, yet your subconscious mind CAN detect and see these fleeting, virtually invisible images, making an impression on your mind even though you are not even aware of it yourself. They may give you subliminal images that make you hungry for a hamburger, such that after watching that movie, you may suddenly have an urge to go buy a hamburger. You may think this was a sudden impulse when in reality it may have been an idea subliminally planted in your brain.